


Don't Believe Me When I Tell You

by cosmotronic



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: F/F, Light Angst, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 19:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15714009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmotronic/pseuds/cosmotronic
Summary: Five years is a long time. A long time to think and a long time to regret. A lot of lies to remember.So she plans.





	Don't Believe Me When I Tell You

**Author's Note:**

> Just jumping into this playpen with a dose of light angst if that's ok.

 

She's good at what she does. She lies.

Her moments are lies, her words are golden touches and her stories siren songs.

She cheats, she steals. She cons her way into bank accounts and wallets, charms her way into a lifestyle. So smoothly that her marks never notice, most of the time. Nameless and faceless; they never know her, never remember.

Her life is a lie and a carnival of misdeed, and she sits atop her house of cards and thinks up more lies.

She is good, until her lies betray her heart.

In prison, that world away from the world, she is just good enough. Just enough power to stay safe, just enough influence to stay strong.

She should keep her head down, her nose clean. But she can’t resist the small luxuries and so she tells small lies. The lies are games and the games are instinct and she enjoys it, the way a woman should enjoy the simple things. She works her sticky fingers into every racket, buys blind eyes with cigarettes and promises.

Still, five years is a long time. A long time to think and a long time to regret. A lot of lies to remember.

So she plans.

She sits in solitary confinement, the only place with room to breath and the only place she can ever really think. And she practices her lies, and plans and plans for years.

She won’t call it revenge, even though she’ll never convince anyone that it’s anything but a chance to frame the man who framed her. The man who lied and cheated and stole and played her like a lovestruck fool.

She was a fool, but she wasn’t a fool in love. She was a lover in pain.

She never lied to Lou, but the truths drove them apart time and again.

 

* * *

 

Her and Lou were going through a rough patch, she tells Tammy.

But Lou _is_ the rough, the uncut diamond to her own polished facade.

Lou is faceless too, but also obvious. Tall and confident, turning heads with her strong jaw and strong gaze and a flick of her hair. Dressing like she wants to be noticed, mesmerising with her wide smiles and low remarks and sharp humour.

It’s a different sort of disguise to her own; Lou is the sort of person a mark would remember. But they only remember the bold outline and the easy charm, and they remember the hint of power that leaves them uncertain, disconcerted.

Lou remembers too, a thousand faces and names and skills. A sprawl of connections and a book of favours owed and favours spent.

Lou plays old-fashioned games with old-fashioned rules.

And tells old-fashioned truths.

 

* * *

 

Lou isn’t a born liar, but together they’ve had fun. Silver-tongued queen and queen of the wicked web, a hundred jobs well done and a thousand nights well spent.

They say you shouldn't get attached, shouldn't drop the mask for even an instant or all the hounds and vultures who snap and circle will find you, and you will be lost.

But there's something about Lou, that she noticed from the first time they met on opposite ends of a job, and every time since. Something that makes her want to stop, and still the rapid reactions in her head, and hold her breath until she sways.

Something brazen, something bold that makes her heart stutter.

Lou had beaten her soundly, that first time. Walked away with the prize and a smirk and her eyes burning a hole between proud shoulders.

The second time they met she fought for the win rather than the prize, ready with a rapid riposte to each cut. Lou had been impressed at the clever pace and grinned like it was the thrill of a lifetime, and the giddiness and the glee and _something else_ made Lou falter. And so the spoils spilled over easily from Lou’s hands into her own.

And then a third time, no coincidence.

And the prize for which they fought was nothing so material as money or jewels or even prestige.

It was so uncertain, so unnecessary and yet so very important. Her heart beat it and her soul screamed it. _Important_. She found herself for the first time driven to recklessness, playing the game harder and looser than ever before. Until they stood as two bloodied queens, hands wrapped about one crown and waging a war of wills.

Others would say that it was Lou who blinked first and became the grit to her sparkle, but she knows it was _her_ who gave and stumbled, fell, leapt into Lou’s orbit.

Lou is blunt and brave and made her interest clear and she, she had succumbed without hesitation.

With Lou, she is always just Debbie and the lies and the faces she wears for other people seem pale and thin. Behind doors, in bed, in the dark, she finds she isn’t so good at what she does.

A truth.

_I love you._

It doesn’t matter who says it first. She pretends it’s a lie, always, laughs it off.

They have years to make it perfect. She could practice and plan and plan, but instead she plays it like a game.

Lou likes the game; it’s in her blood just as much.

But blood runs cold as well as hot, and games don’t last forever.

 

* * *

 

They pretend, for old time’s sake. And for the others. And for 150 million dollars and change. Money has a way of smoothing the roughest of reunions, the sharpest of truths and the most twisted of lies.

So they pretend that friends, _old_ friends and partners in crime is as far as it goes and as far as it ever went. She could even believe the pretence, until Lou looks at her with eyes that yearn and a soul that aches and a whisper of truth on her tongue.

_Oh honey, is that a proposal?_

She tries to ignore it. Tries to concentrate on the job, the job that isn’t her revenge but her fucking _purpose_ and the only thing that kept her heart alive through five long years. The anticipation of the thrill, just like it was before, _before him_ , with Lou by her side.

And under her touch. Her fingers burn for it.

None of the others are stupid, and even the ones that don’t know their history infer it from the flames that crackle and spark about them.

They can see that Lou is angry. And they can see that she is afraid.

Lou is itching for a rise, pulling to and fro in desperation and shouting, _pleading_ with her to stop and think and reconsider. She could but she won’t, she _won’t_ , and she shouts too and the flames flick higher.

She’s expecting it when Lou kisses her, pushed up against the warehouse door. Frustration growling, a gaze scorching and suddenly their lips pressed together hard and harsh.

She’s expecting it but still her stomach drops. And the rest of her comes crashing down around like slivers of glass. The mirrored case she placed about her heart to protect herself, gone. She _gave_ Lou the key years ago, gave her everything but Lou is blunt and rough and hurting and now those protections lie smashed and useless.

The alarms are silent, screeching warnings in her ear only. But Lou must hear it. The others in the next room, they must hear it too. They must know.

There’s no going back. She returns the kiss, fierce against the fury. Teeth catching, hands clawing and fire building deep down inside. She moans and it’s loud. Lou catches it from her lips, mutters something like a defeat into her neck and presses their bodies closer.

 

* * *

 

Later, when the others are gone, they sit in Lou’s far too large, far too cold apartment.

A foot and a half apart, silent and surrounded by the jagged, painful memories of the last time they did this. Sat a foot and a half apart in a different place, in a different time, on the verge of what she won’t call a breakup.

She picks up a piece of a memory, examines it. It’s sharp and it cuts her.

_Are we really going to do this again?_

Lou twitches their fingers together in place of an answer, white knuckle against the black leather. She can feel the tension, see it in her partner’s shallow breaths and wire-tight spine. There’s no quip, no smooth delivery, only the nearly silent moment stretching on and on and on.

Lou won’t give her this without the risk, won’t make it easy.

It’s her gamble, and she ducks her head and throws in her chip and calls it.

No going back, she reminds herself. Quickly, she twists and climbs onto Lou’s lap. Stares deep into the blue, the uncertainty, the dream and the longing. Runs her thumbs over those sharp cheekbones and that soft, soft skin before tilting their faces into a long and tender kiss.

Lou melts under her, all liquid sighs and low affirmations.

And then relief gives way to that longing and the pull of the dream and Lou grasps her tight and kisses her back with rising urgency, pulling her closer.

Their bodies fit well with their long slender lines, and their intimacy is of a familiar design well learned and well remembered. It isn’t long before she finds her skirt pushed up about her hips and Lou’s shirt hanging open, buttons rent apart.

She’d rather they were naked, rather feel it skin to skin. Rather take her time tracing contours and textures, carving the moment into a lasting monument to weather all blows. But there’s no time, not now.

They’ve ached too long, apart and together, and she’s lied too long.

She lets Lou slide fingers firm against her, inside her.

_Did you miss this?_

She pushes down on her partner’s hand, the only reply she’s able to give. She cries out wordlessly as those long, clever fingers drive deep and _fuck_ she has missed it. Missed the intimacy and the raw physicality and the way her universe seems to shrink to a single white-hot point about which her body can barely hold together.

And more.

She curls her body and chases the feeling and comes with another truth uncomfortable on her lips.

_I missed you._

It burns like a brand and she hopes it’s enough.

 

* * *

 

It’s deadly how quickly they fall into their old habits. Dangerous, how easily she is lured.

It’s only physical; a lie she tells herself as Lou’s clever tongue teases gasping truths from her.

Flat on her back, her _lover_ between her legs, she moans her truths.

Lou brings her to a gentle orgasm, the sort that washes over a person like easing into a hot bath after a long day. The aches, relieved. The cares, diluted into pale remembrance.

For a time she lies back in the afterglow. For a time she can imagine that they could be normal, just two souls swept together by serendipity and not the swirling turbulence of their chosen life. Because always they are pushed together, pulled together, crashing into each other without a chance to leap aside or flee or forget.

Lou hums into her skin and kisses her thighs with a tenderness she does not deserve. Looks up at her, along the planes of her body and the swell of her heaving chest, and smiles a wicked smile.

_More?_

She smiles back, soft and sad and suddenly starving.

 _More_.

It’s simpler, when Lou flips her over and fucks her. It’s uncomplicated, with her face in the pillow and her hips in the air. Her lust less like a confession.

And it’s easier, when she comes screaming her surrender.

And when she can’t take it any more, when her body has collapsed and her soul has been cried out into the night over and over, she accepts Lou’s terms and her own.

It won’t be easy, but _fuck_ whoever said the game should be easy.

She pushes Lou off and away from her, splayed out on the damp and rumpled sheets. Barely takes the time to kiss the worry from her lover’s lips before she moves. Pins Lou down with the strength of a look and moves her thigh firmly up, up against the waiting heat and sinks her teeth deep in promise.

And afterwards they lie together, a foot and a half apart but it’s different now. It feels like part of the plan and it feels like home.

In her dreams Lou was always there, in her plans, by her side. But in reality, it was always a wildcard.

And she’ll never admit it to the others and she’ll never tell Lou but there were contingencies in the many-threaded versions of her plan. Possibilities and potentials without Lou, where the ache and the broken hearts were just too much and Lou would shake her head sadly and leave, or scream and rage at her and leave, or worse.

Worlds where Lou doesn’t need her as much as she needs Lou.

It could have worked, and she lies and tells herself she’d have tried.

But lying here in the bed she’s made, she knows now what futility that would have been. She can’t do any of this without Lou and it was Lou who kept her alive inside, for five years while she played games and planned and schemed because the payoff was never meant to be diamonds or revenge, it was _this_.

 

* * *

 

It comes together, in the end. Call it hubris, call it pride, but _of course it does_ because she’s that good. They are all that good.

And she’ll smile afterwards and tell them all it was never in doubt but if that were true she’d have resigned herself to the ordinary life long ago. She loves the win but there’s a high-rolling part of her that loves the thrill more. The thrill of the maybe, of the what-if, the ten-percent risk and the fifty-fifty chances. Chaos rules, her chaos.

Precious gambles, and so many lies. The only thing she’s good at.

Tonight, her part of the plan is unusual. She needs to wait. She’s been watching people all evening, letting them watch her and _remember_ and that feels strange. She feels naked and exposed in her thousand-dollar dress; her borrowed voice telling the thinnest of stories, weaving the weakest of illusions.

She smiles at a waiter, at a celebrity guest, into the camera. And she waits.

She watches and whispers as the curtain sweeps open and the players step into play. A clever stage show where she counts the beats and the dancers step and turn on cue, and dazzle and cast their veils out like enchantresses spinning spells. And she waits.

It goes perfectly, or as near to perfect as she can bear. The seconds tick down and here it is, the final act. And she waits.

She waits and for a second, a long and low and sinking second she wonders. A horrible thought clawing in alongside the exhilaration of the night, a bloody splinter worrying beside a tender heart.

It’ll work, it’s gone too far now not to work but it’ll mean nothing without _her_ and she’ll throw her prize to the curb and hold out her wrists for the snap of steel if that is the price she has to pay for her happy ending.

Then she looks up and across the street and her heart takes wing.

That’s her Lou, turning heads and mesmerising.

Her chaos.

Her lips part and Lou’s eyes roam _hungry_ and they almost kiss, right there in the middle of it all. Instead she waits. Lou breaks first, grin cutting and hand resting solid in her own, another shiny diamond in her trove.

And she thinks that this is the reunion they should have had, all sparkles and danger because that’s who they are and they'll always shine brightest together and roll hardest together.

 _Let’s do this_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and feedback much appreciated :)
> 
> I am sort of obsessing over these girls right now, so hopefully more O8 fic soon. If you happen to like my rambly nonsense I have written a bunch of stories for other fandoms, all here on ao3.
> 
> Also a mess of a tumblr @cosmotronic87


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